If you’re anything like me, you have good days and bad days when it comes to running your freelance business. Some days, weeks, or months, business is booming, income is at a high, clients are calling, and you couldn’t be more pleased with your business. But other days, you’ve hit rock bottom wondering where all the clients are hiding. You can’t seem to get motivated, you’re running out of cash, and everything seems bleak. If you’re going through a lower-than-you’d-like

I’ve met a few designers who think it’s a good idea to have a facebook page for their freelance design business. Whether or not I think it’s a good idea to have a facebook page as a freelance designer (I think in some cases it makes sense and in others, it doesn’t), herein lies the big question: How do I get clients to like my design business facebook page? First, who are you targeting? Just like it’s important to decide

Have you ever realized what your price point says about you as a designer? As designers we worry so much about how our brand looks when it comes to logo, web site, etc. We obsess over what to name our design business. We’re constantly asking ourselves if it’s time for a redesign or a rebrand. But how often do we ask ourselves if we need to rethink our pricing strategy? Believe it or not, your pricing strategy is a huge

Do you ever wonder if you can make it as a freelancer? I mean, are you afraid to leave your full-time job even if you hate it to pursue the freelance lifestyle? There’s nothing wrong with a full-time day job (I have one), but many designers choose to stay at a dead-end job despite their intense desire to branch out on their own and start freelancing. So what keeps them from reaching for their dreams? Almost always, it’s the same

We talk a lot about contracts here at GDB (see bottom of this post for a list of resources for working with contracts as a designer). But one thing we don’t talk about very often is what to do when/if your client breaks his terms of the deal. Since most designers (myself included) don’t get super-jazzed up when it comes to legal-speak, I’d like to try to break it down into right-brained language today. PS: I’m no lawyer. I will

I don’t know about you, but any art classes or design classes that I took in college were amazing yet unsatisfying at the same time. Don’t get me wrong: I could never have made it without beginning design classes where we learned about alignment, repetition, font-choice, etc. And (on most days) I wouldn’t trade my upper-level classes where the professors heavily critiqued your work almost to the breaking point all in hopes to make you a better designer. But after

In 2009, I wrote a post titled “7 tips on presenting logos to a client” and more than three years later I got this tweet from @thomshouse: I was curious of the order in which you present a logo… Do you lead with the logo, then discuss the “why”… Or discuss first, building up to the reveal? Today, I want to share my answer with all of you and then I want to hear what you have to say (leave

Usually, here at GDB, it’s all about business. No joking around. After all, GDB’s the leading authority on business advice for designers around the world. But today, we have something unique and (shh don’t tell anyone) fun to show you! If you’re a freelance designer, you’re going to get a serious kick out of our newest ebook (eComic Book actually), You Know You’re a Freelance Designer When… And believe, me, you’re not only going to relate to some of the

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